Weekly Wrap: What Killed Aaron Swartz? ... A Murder-Suicide Minus the Murder. ... And the 1 in 50 Millstone
Aaron Swartz looks like a "canary kid" to me. The tech wonderkind, creator of RSS and Reddit, born in November 1986 and a suicide this January, had the dark circles around his eyes and the combination of intensity and depression, keen intellect and chronic ill health, that seem like the two poles of life for so many kids and young people today.
Of course, he was also under indictment for unauthorized downloading, and faced the possibility of a few months in jail (not the 30 or 40 years the media keeps citing). Those who knew him best said they thought the criminal case wasn't really enough to explain why he hung himself, and the details that have emerged suggest what that "else" might be.
"He was small and frail and shy and often
sick," according to a New Yorker profile. Specifically, "he
had
Crohn's disease; he also thought that he was a 'supertaster,' experiencing
sensations of taste more intensely than regular people. Partly for these
reasons, he ate only foods that were white or yellow. He ate pasta, tofu,
cheese, bread, rice, eggs, and cheese pizza. He was phobic about fruit and
wouldn't touch it."
The profile also suggests that a combination of medicines might have triggered suicidal impulses. Regardless, he had enough health issues to remind us of too many other young people in this Age of Autism -- kids with sensory issues, food sensitivities, gut problems that can be disabling.
As I wrote last week, suicide is not just a psychiatric outcome but often reflects a biomedical crisis for the body and mind triggered by environmental factors we need to start acknowledging.
--
I also wrote last week about the phenomenon of murder-suicides, mostly by young men, and noted that the horror of mass murder obscures the fact that all of these young men first decided they were willing and perhaps eager to die themselves. "Suicide by cop" -- in which the only outcome for the perpetrator is death at his own hand or a law officer's -- has become a term of art.
Right on cue, we had the example of a student at Central
Florida University who appears to have been planning a mass attack but, after
pointing a gun at his roommate and being cornered by the police, shot himself. (And after I wrote these words on Thursday, a Marine not far from me in Northern Virginia killed two other Marines, and then himself after being cornered by the MPs. It's getting hard to keep up.)
Too many young people are too willing to die. Why?
--
I was traveling this week and heard about the 1 in 50 rate from the CDC while I was in Illinois. I happened to talk to a physical therapist in a downstate school system, who told me something has happened to increase the actual numbers in the past 10 or 15 years, and it's not better diagnosis.
In a typical setting for special-needs kids 15 years ago, he said, there would be 1 or 2 children with autism. Now there are 30 or 40. Before, the autism kids might conceivably have had a different label, according to this first-hand witness -- behavior disorder or emotional disorder. But there still would have been just one or two of them, not 30 or 40.
That's the 10- or 20-fold increase that can no longer be hidden.
--
On the flight back from Virginia, I sat in front of a crying child. Thank God for iTunes and earbuds. But I noticed that each time after the child cried, he had trouble getting his breath. He wheezed. He had asthma. I went from feeling sorry for myself for my seat selection to feeling how awful it must be to gasp for breath before you could even talk.
--
Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism.
Three or maybe four weeks has gone by and every week there has been some person that has a history of being mentally ill - killing five or six and maiming five or six more.
South Carolina, Tennessee, and Louisiana Oh- am becoming desensitized - just now tow brothers 18 and 16 took a knife to their entire family -- five I think are dead. It showed a picture of the 18 year old -- One eye was pulled in a bit -- his right one.
So far the talk is not about mental illness but about an old historical, red neck flag; armed citizens showing up to sit in front of military recruitment centers, close questioning about connections to ISIS but they can't find much except the internet. There is a lot of talk about the government getting its fingers into some parts of the internet but no mention of mental illness.
Do you think they fear that people will start asking why the rise?
Posted by: Benedetta | July 25, 2015 at 04:29 PM
There is little doubt in my mind that Swartz was murdered, IF, there was no suicide note which is what has been reported. The existence of a suicide note is not always revealed to the public. If there was no note, Swartz is the type of person who would have left a note. He would not have departed without a epitaph of his own writing. For it to occur immediately after refusing a plea deal and forcing the criminal case to go forward, his death was the only way to prevent that process.
The question as who killed him is the greater question. Of course government agents is the first thought. However, they are more likely to prefer stumbling through a trial for all the personal publicity it would attract. It is more likely that there was a fear of something extremely damaging to an individual or company coming out during the trial. In this technological era where 100s of millions of dollars change hands as new developments occur, Swartz could have become the greatest asset to one entity while becoming the greatest liability for another.
So, the facts speak plainly enough as to a murder. Hanging is, by far, the easiest murder to coverup. No trail of evidence in acquiring prescription drugs, guns, knives, razor blades, or whatever implement could be used. No climbing to a jumping place where a witness might observe. Even a recent hanging in a Texas jail where cameras saw no one entering or leaving the inmate's cell is being treated as a potential murder, with far less motive or evidence. Also, when someone of such a high profile that has so many people wishing him dead, the official cause of death being labelled a suicide came too easily and quickly.
Posted by: Buzz Avery | July 25, 2015 at 01:08 PM
Jeannette Bishop
I like your..."yeah, yeah, I know vaccines/pharmaceuticals are bad...tell me something I don't know...but there are too many other instances of mainstream narratives that don't add up, too many other "coincidences," besides kids just regressing around the age they get vaccinated, i.e. I think to some, the vaccine injury epidemic, though they may not fully appreciate its extent, is just one likely real microcosm in the network of global corruption macrocosm."
It's surprising how all-consuming the virtual computer world has become. I meet more computer-people who are out of touch when it comes to real live toxins.
The other day, I got an email from one of the anti-corruption cyber-gurus who said he hadn't heard of mercury causing depression after I had written him about that connection. I am not sure what other symptoms (often hallmark traits of computer nerds) are operating only under the radar; but there are many examples where I get eye-rolling when I talk about it, and then my arguments are turned around to make it seems that there is this fringe group with these weird ideas.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | March 25, 2013 at 06:53 PM
Maybe my impressions are off, but for those who spend quite a lot of time and get their news mostly cyberspace there is somewhat more, I think, a view that vaccine information more reliably comes from the internet than from the forces accustomed to having control of information output. I think many believe the DOJ moved aggressively (MIT didn't) against Swartz because he was instrumental in the huge push against SOPA and PIPA and many suspect his death was not even a suicide.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR.html
I think they see this as part of a bigger picture of elements of corruption attempting to hold on to and increase their power, power threatened by the free exchange of information over the net, i.e. they are open to information about the harm of pharmaceuticals, etc., but many are also convinced the corruption goes beyond that one industry. It's almost as if some are like, yeah, yeah, I know vaccines/pharmaceuticals are bad...tell me something I don't know...but there are too many other instances of mainstream narratives that don't add up, too many other "coincidences," besides kids just regressing around the age they get vaccinated, i.e. I think to some, the vaccine injury epidemic, though they may not fully appreciate its extent, is just one likely real microcosm in the network of global corruption macrocosm.
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | March 25, 2013 at 05:17 PM
For some reason most of the news around Aaron Swartz has been revolving around cyberspace and how his battle seemed so futile. It was mostly the cyber community that was up in arms, thinking that their cause, namely net neutrality and unlimited access to that space, mattered.
The truth is that there have always been causes, and even when these people were fighting their causes (let's say the French or American revolutions), those people didn't kill themselves unless they died storming the Bastille or fell on a battlefield.
It has to be obvious even to computer nerds that the environment is involved in making our youths lose their bearings. It has to become obvious that our youths have something in common that makes them sick, and the elderly, too, are resorting to alternative medicine to improve their health when their doctors tell them it's all in their heads. So what's the common denominator? It is and has been vaccines.
Each individual may deal with the effects of vaccines differently. Some of us already avoid them. But if you are Aaron Swartz and you are wrapped up in cyberspace, you don't get that kind of knowledge unless you are like us, parents of an autistic child or two or three.
Posted by: Birgit Calhoun | March 25, 2013 at 03:03 PM
Re the link re antidepressants and vaccines. Shaking my head here. According to the manufacturer's insert, the shingles vaccines has a 50% efficacy and has been studied for up to 4 years post administration.
Your article states: "The participants with depression who were not assigned antidepressants had lower levels of immunity after receiving the zoster vaccine vs. the controls at baseline and at all points after vaccination. Those with depression who were assigned antidepressants had higher levels of immunity compared with those not assigned antidepressants."
They say "lower" and "higher", but they don't say how much lower or higher. How much trouble would it be for them to be specific so that the significance of the results can be judged?
Anyway, thanks Jeanette, for answering my question.
Posted by: Linda | March 24, 2013 at 07:25 PM
The CDC's last official data was for children born in 2000, surveyed in 2008. I find it odd that the CDC releases this phone survey, instead of updated stats for children born in 2002 or 2004. I think I read that in this survey there was more of an increase among the older kids, but still what we hear in the news is that the autism rate keeps increasing. This fits in perfectly with the "autism keeps increasing even though thimerosal was removed from vaccines" argument. Of course, thimerosal is not completely removed although reduced, mercury keeps increasing in the environment, and the overall number of vaccines keeps increasing, and thimerosal is not the only vax ingredient which could cause neuro-inflammation/encephalitis/autoimmunity. But what if there is actually less and milder autism in the children born in 2002 and thereafter? And this phone survey is the last hurrah before changing the definition of autism so that if there is less autism - because of less thimerosal and more parents vaccinating more carefully, not according to the CDC schedule or not at all - we can be told that any comparison is apples and oranges.
On the other hand the phone survey is subject to attack by the increase-skeptics as not being based on hard data, therefore no real increase.
Posted by: Twyla | March 24, 2013 at 02:42 PM
re "anti-depressants" and vaccines:
http://www.healio.com/infectious-disease/vaccine-preventable-diseases/news/online/%7B3f89a78c-8741-43f5-b9ed-e8533acecb78%7D/antidepressants-boosted-response-to-vzv-vaccine-in-depressed-seniors
Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | March 24, 2013 at 02:26 PM
I highly recommend the book The Autoimmune Epidemic by Donna Jackson Nakazawa. Statistics clearly show that Crohn's is a new disease and environmental, and the information contained is really eye opening, almost overwhelming. This gifted young man definitely did not kill himself over his legal problems, but a person with depression and severe medical problems can't take any more stress.
Posted by: Lisa | March 24, 2013 at 10:22 AM
Ann Blake-Tracy,
"AND they are now talking about adding them to vaccines!!!!"
Could you please elaborate on that?
Posted by: Linda | March 24, 2013 at 10:13 AM
"As I wrote last week, suicide is not just a psychiatric outcome but often reflects a biomedical crisis for the body and mind triggered by environmental factors we need to start acknowledging."
EXACTLY!!!!! This is what I have said the past 20+ years in working with those on antidepressants and the families of those on antidepressants who have committed suicide on these drugs. It is the damage done to both the body and the brain that produces this outcome. Did Aaron have Chrohn's BEFORE he took an antidepressant? Since Chrohn's and IBS are so often the result of taking an antidepressant who knows?! I had a case of a mother on Prozac for 7 years. I helped her through the only safe withdrawal method we have found - EXTREMELY SLOW! And she had another baby 18 months after being completely off. At age 3 weeks the baby was passing more blood than stool. Both the family physician and the pediatrician agreed that it was the Prozac residue in the mother's milk that was eating away the baby's intestinal lining. That was quickly confirmed when we added clean (totally drug free) mother's milk by half and half and the bleeding stopped.
These antidepressant drugs are deadly combos of chemicals that produce Autism just as vaccines do. Studies now show 3 - 4 times greater rate in the children of moms who take these meds - something I have LONG warned would be the end result of mothers taking these meds because even adult patients who take them develop Autistic symptoms. They are extremely toxic drugs which produce both asthma and allergies as well. AND they are now talking about adding them to vaccines!!!! Sounds to me that Hitler is alive and well and flourishing in America today!!!!
Ann Blake Tracy, Executive Director,
International Coalition for Drug Awareness
www.drugawareness.org & http://ssristories.drugawareness.org
Author: *"Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare - The Complete Truth of the Full Impact of Antidepressants Upon Us & Our World" & Withdrawal CD "Help! I Can't Get Off My Antidepressant!"
Posted by: Ann Blake-Tracy | March 23, 2013 at 10:51 PM
I really feel for Aaron, and for the family that misses him, but he's one of many, many that are likewise affected. He was born late enough to get a real solid onslaught of injected poisons. I believe vaccines affect ALL children who get them. They don't all present with Autism, they don't even all present with ADHD or Asthma, but they all have something wrong. Almost all have allergies. The majority with no outstanding learning disabilities have gut issues(that present as symptoms like those described for Aaron in this article, plus many others) that no one detects, no doctor finds or diagnoses. Look at all the kids in school with slight behavior problems or barely detectable stimming, that nothing gets done about, chalked up to "boys will be boys" or some such. Teacher's aren't occupational therapists; they can't be expected to detect this stuff. They are overburdened on a good day and the increase of neurological disorders in the class only makes it harder on them. The educating of teachers is not keeping up. If a baby screams loudly for six straight months, the doctor just says it's colic, give him gripe water. They're not educating the doctors on the real causes of that. I once saw a TV show about people with extraordinary mental abilities, like a man in his 20s in England that could do complex math or name the day of the week on a randomly chosen date 50 or 100 years in the past or future, and thing like that, in his head, in seconds. Then they show his mother saying he screamed and cried for a straight year as a baby. Clearly this kid was vaccine injured and his brain coped with the neural disorder by ordering things and eventually caused him to have great mathematical ability. We know that kids on the spectrum do that with the disorder in the mind; they try to make order in there. Stimming is one such effort but it also happens inside the mind. He could have health problems they didn't mention. Actress Emma Stone said in a commercial that she screamed for that long as a baby and "that's why I sounds like this". It makes you wonder. So anyway with these kids, in a lot of cases later in life the psych industry gets a hold of them and medicates their brains. Of course it only makes things worse. A biomed doc would pick up on Aarons eating habits and act accordingly. If every kid got that treatment there would be fewer adults ending up like Aaron.
I know a few people that never gave their kids a drop of vaccine and you guessed it they are the healthiest and best academically achieving kids(some are grown up now) that you will meet. They don't get the flu or get sick, or get ear infections, don't go on the antibiotic merry-go-round, don't have asthma or allergies, have perfect gut flora, and pass under the psych's radar for good candidates for their drugs.
I'll say it again: VACCINES AFFECT ALL KIDS who get them.
Posted by: Carter's Daddy | March 23, 2013 at 01:35 PM
I think that the autism spectrum is just the tip of the iceberg. I know so many people whose kids are sick with other illnesses, things I never heard of when I was growing up but are so common now. These moms are frustrated with the obstacles to health and healing they run into - schools who can't/won't respect diet concerns, learning disabilities that can't be overcome, growth issues, asthma, etc. Their kids aren't diagnosed with autism but they do have pieces of that problem. These moms are reading labels in the grocery store and buying water filters too. They are buying organic and want their food labelled. They are seeking alternatives in health care. Last week I even met a mom whose child is "gifted" but has other gut issues and extreme social issues but no one will take her seriously.
The health of all our kids is in the tank.....so, so sick.
Posted by: Shelly | March 23, 2013 at 12:16 PM
"I also wrote last week about the phenomenon of murder-suicides, mostly by young men ..."
Last year .. I read a stunning report of "1 suicide a day" being committed by members of the US military.
As troubling as that figure was .. imagine my shock watching a recent "60 Minutes" show where host Scott Pelley reported "22 members of the military commit suicide EVERY DAY". I thought Scott had surely mis-spoke .. until I read the following Forbes article relating the same information:
http://tinyurl.com/cv6qk4o
According to Forbes, "almost once an hour, every 65 minutes to be precise, a military veteran committs suicide. Many of these suicides involve older veterans, 69 percent of the suicides recorded were by veterans age 50 or older. But another way to look at this is that 31 percent of these suicides were by veterans 49 and younder, in other words .. by men in the prime of life"
In additon .. military data reports suicides among those on ACTIVE duty hit a record high in 2012. According to this article, there were 349 suicides among active duty personnel .. almost ONE A DAY. That means there are now more suicides among active duty soldiers than there are combat deaths.
Unfortunately, I suspect the inexplicable, dramatic increase in military suicides will ultimately be dismissed by the usual "sock puppets" (Dr. Guptha, Dr. Offit, Dr. Besser, Dr. Snyderman, etc.) .. as being caused by "better diagnosing and broader definition" of suicide.
We live in a world gone completely MADDDDDDDDDDD.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | March 23, 2013 at 11:01 AM
I almost hate that we are hearing 1 in 50 , with 1 in 31 representing boys. THIS DOES NOT represent the damage. It may represent autism but it is not the ENTIRE picture. I have one on the spectrum, one right now fighting an asthma life threatening episode, one with crohn's, throw in some speech delays and Kawasaki and that's the REAL picture of a vaccinated family.Oh and let me not forget the strep carriers, two of them in the mix. with ONE who lives among the illnesses, age five, not vaccinated, who hates that plans are so often switched because of what we call "man down".
Posted by: barbara j | March 23, 2013 at 09:25 AM